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Special Forces violated human rights in prison attack

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Indonesia's Human Rights Commission has found that members of the country's Special Forces violated human rights in a deadly attack on a prison.

About three weeks ago, a group of armed men stormed an Indonesian prison and killed four murder suspects.

The army has since admitted that Special Forces soldiers were responsible for the revenge attack.

But the Human Rights Commission's initial findings are that more people were involved in the raid than the military claims.

Here's our Indonesia correspondent George Roberts.

GEORGE ROBERTS: Just two nights ago the Indonesian defence minister, Purnomo Yusgiantoro, was playing down the legal implications of the attack.

PURNOMO YUSGIANTORO (translation): This is not a human rights violation, I want to be firm on this. There are some suggestions to implement human rights law, but we are not of the same opinion. We disagree about the implications of the law.

GEORGE ROBERTS: It happened last month when four inmates were executed during a pre-dawn raid on a secure prison in Yogyakarta.

It was immediately described as a professional, well-planned revenge attack.

Defence minister Purnomo's justifications for ruling out human rights violations are: not enough people were killed, and it wasn't an organised raid.

PURNOMO YUSGIANTORO (translation): It's not a genocide incident. It was a spontaneous action from military members. There's no systemic order from their superiors on this crime.

So our position is that it is unnecessary to use human rights law and consider this as the human right violation

GEORGE ROBERTS: The country's Human Rights Commission has done a preliminary investigation and thinks otherwise.

There are other discrepancies too.

The military says just 11 low-ranking members of the elite special forces unit stormed Yogyakarta's Cebongan Prison in an unplanned attack.

But after interviewing prison wardens, guards, police and doing a basic re-enactment, the human rights commission has determined that at least three more people were involved, and the operation was highly organised.

The head of the Commission is Siti Noor Laila.

SITI NOOR LAILA (translation): Based on the re-enactment, we found the fact that at least 14 personnel were involved, with high coordination and specific tasks.

It was neatly done. There was an executioner, a timekeeper, they destroyed the CCTV (Closed Circuit Television), pointed rifles towards and arrested the prison guards, secured the perimeter outside, and used drivers. They were also wearing vests, gloves, ski masks, and using communication devices.

GEORGE ROBERTS: In conceding its members were behind the killings, the military said the raid was about protecting the Kopassus unit's honour.

Commissioner Siti again:

SITI NOOR LAILA (translation): Based on the investigation, the Human Rights Commission assessed that a human rights violation has occurred which claimed four lives.

They tortured a number of prison guards, also destroyed and took a CCTV system, servers, and TV monitors, as well as mobile phones belonging to the guards. There was intimidation towards 31 prisoners who witnessed the executions, which caused psychological distress, trauma, and fear.

The Commission's preliminary findings are that as well as extra-judicial killings, the raid involved a number of human rights violations, including torture.

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